More than 200,000 Yazidi survivors remain displaced from their homes in Iraq due to the PKK terrorist threat as well as inadequate living conditions.
"We can't go back to our homes due to some forces (PKK) in Sinjar and the problems people are experiencing there," Saud Seydo, a resident of the Sharya Refugee Camp, told Anadolu Agency (AA).
"International organizations give us no help going back to our homes," he added.
Seydo, another camp resident, said: "We have no income, our financial situation is not good, and we cannot return to Sinjar."
The Yazidis, are unable to return to their homes because of the terrorist group PKK, according to Suleyman Hidir, another refugee from the camp, who said that everyone wants to live in their homes if they are safe, but they cannot in the current situation.
They are afraid of returning to their houses, refugee Ali Hudada said, adding that if the Iraqi government officially declares Sinjar safe, then they can return.
The United Nations said on Thursday that 200,000 people are still displaced since 2014 when Daesh killed thousands of Yazidis.
The needs of displaced persons living in and outside camps, and returnees remain high said the U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM).
A lack of adequate shelter and basic services such as running water, electricity, health care and education is making durable solutions difficult for Yazidis returning home or seeking to do so.
"Families are forced to focus on meeting their most basic needs rather than meaningfully rebuilding their lives," the IOM said.
"Mass executions, forced conversions, abduction and enslavement, systematic sexual violence and other heinous acts" perpetrated by Daesh "reflect a genocidal effort to destroy this historically-persecuted ethno-religious minority," the IOM said.
More than 2,700 people remain missing, the agency added.
"The scale of the atrocities committed against the Yazidi community is such that it will have an impact on generations to come," said Sandra Orlovic, IOM Iraq's reparations officer.
"The government of Iraq and the international community need to create conditions that will assure Yazidis that such atrocities will not happen again and support them in healing and rebuilding their lives."
Daesh has been active in the Iraqi provinces of Salahuddin, Anbar, Kirkuk, and Diyala, at a time when the federal government is struggling to contain attacks by the terrorist group by launching security and military operations in the country's northern, western, and eastern regions.
In 2017, Iraq declared victory over Daesh by reclaiming all territories the terrorist group controlled since the summer of 2014, estimated to be about one-third of the country's territory. But the PKK terror group remains active in the region.
